Snowy Christmas
by thenewsomelibrary
Summary: Lily is staying at Hogwarts for christmas in her seventh year because her family won't have any reunion since her father died a year ago. Christmas One-Shot.


_A/N: Hey guys, this is a harry potter secret santa gift. Nevertheless, I hope you all enjoy this little thingie and make me happy with a little comment. Thanks heaps and heaps to my beta, gracedkelly, I think you really had a great view on this and pointed out important things (although I might still have mistakes in the commas)._

 _Dear Ana,_

 _Merry christmas to you! I know we never really talked and since I knew a bit of what you wished for I didn't even ask because I was scared you'd notice. Anyway, this is it, and I hope you like the little fanfic I wrote for you._

 _Love, Jana_

 _Dear notebook,_

 _It's Christmas, and hey, guess where I am? At Hogwarts. Of course Tuney wouldn't want me to destroy her perfect little family Christmas dinner, so I figured I could as well stay at school after Dad isn't here anymore and Mom just quit. I'm not the only one anyway, the Marauders are staying as well from our year. All four of them! I just wonder why, don't they have their families? Christmas should be a family feast. Except that my family fell apart when Dad died on Christmas last year._

Lily got up from her windowsill in the head girl's dormitory. She must have fallen asleep while writing a new entry. Her legs hurt, and her notebook wasn't on her knees anymore.

She spotted it on the floor – thank Merlin, it hadn't fallen out the window – when she planned on curling up in bed again until breakfast. It would probably be served later than usual, but she didn't know exactly. Never before had she spent Christmas at Hogwarts, and the thought of her family, though flawed they were, crept into her mind again. How was she celebrating christmas without them? Did anyone even think of her?

It was surprising to see the small pile of presents at the end of her bed. Was it tradition that all presents were put there for the students who stayed? She hadn't even expected a single present to be honest.

Actually there was no point in trying to fall asleep again, because that would be impossible now that she'd spotted her presents. Lily, curious, started towards them. At home, there had been a pile of presents for everyone beneath the Christmas tree. Her father only bought the tree before and brought it in on Christmas Eve, so everyone'd see their presents the next morning for the first time. When they got older, Lily and Tuney had started to get up at night to add their presents for their parents together.

The first one Lily unpacked now was from Marlene who seemed to have bought Honeydukes out for her friend: Chocolate frogs, Bertie Bott's beans, caramel pastilles, chocolate houses... And a long letter was enclosed, in which Marlene warned Lily to be careful with the Marauders. She hoped Liy would have a lot of fun at the same time, because, if nothing else, the Marauders were bound to make things interesting.

Lily chuckled. Sometimes Marls was like a bouncing ball of cheerful happiness, and Lily loved her for that.

She now carefully opened a long but thin package that turned out to be a new quill and a calligraphy pen. Only Hannah would give her a present like this, Lily thought with a smile. Hannah was the only one who knew and understood her friend's love for calligraphy. It was probably a Muggle thing. The quill was also beautiful with a nice emerald green tone. Hannah's letter was written in her usual cheerful tone, but unlike Marlene's there was a message hidden between the lines. Hannah was worried about her being alone on a day like this.

Lily skipped over the phrases quickly, planning on reading those later. She didn't want to think about any of it.

There were a few other presents left,and Lily reached for a rather large package, roughly wrapped in red and golden paper. A grin suddenly appeared on her face, as this could only have come from James.

Inside, she found a round device with two black sticks on it that pointed upwards. For Merlin's sake, she didn't even want to guess what this was. Lily tried to get it out of its box, but only a moment later she winced in shock so that the strange thing almost fell to the floor.

The loud ringing of small bells filled her room and seconds later a male voice started singing _Jingle Bells_. It was so horribly loud that fourth year Eliza Palor must have heard it in the Slytherin dorms across the castle.

Frustrated, Lily turned the device around to find a button, anything, but there was nothing. Only the black straight surface.

"Silencio!"she yelled, but it kept playing. Merlin, she'd kill James later.

To muffle the sound, she put her blankets around the noisemaker, trying to turn it down a little. On the other hand, James would deserve to wake up from his own noise.

Now it was definitely time to leave for breakfast. Putting on jeans and a knitted pullover, the Head Girl made her way out of her dorm that she had on her own, with no reason she could understand. Head Girl duties like planning patrols and stuff weren't that hard. Not that she complained. She went through the deserted common room and downstairs to the Great Hall. One could basically _feel_ how empty the castle was today; no running in the halls, calls and laughter from behind the doors, giggling from the portraits. How empty could Hogwarts get, really?

It seemed like the snow outside had frozen the castle and muffled every sound.

Except James' present of course.

The Great Hall was lit by a thousand lights this morning, someone had even put on a record quietly playing Christmas songs. Lily was apparently the first one in the festively decorated hall, besides Professor McGonagall. „Merry Christmas, Miss Evans," she greeted her warmly.

„Merry Christmas," Lily replied politely and sat down at the Gryffindor table. It was a little weird without anyone else.

In an instant, her plate full of food was in front of her. Christmas really was a little different.

She was pretty surprised that about half an hour later, when Dumbledore and Hagrid had taken their places as well, the Marauders strolled into the Hall – Lily had expected them to sleep like logs late into the day.

After exchanging a few Merry Christmas greetings, James fell into the seat next to her with Sirius right behind him: "I hear you found my present," he smirked, clearly pleased with himself. He knew very well that Lily had no idea how to handle the device.

"Well, it probably woke up even Hagrid in his cabin. A pity you didn't think of mentioning how to turn down the volume", she replied.

"It needs special words of affection", James explained seriously.

Sirius chuckled loudly, "Although..."

"Shut it, Padfoot", his mate grinned. Lily was very curious, but she failed to figure out what Sirius was about to say.

"Well, whatever."

"Back to your gift. It reacts on code words", James continued, "to start the music say; 'Shall the silence be destroyed.' To stop, tell it; 'I need a calming quiet!'"

Lily started laughing. Oh, James and his ridiculous ideas!

"I'd be afraid of forgetting all of that, Prongs," Peter remarked, sending...

"Well, Lily should be clever enough to manage it", Remus stated. Lily gave it 50/50 odds that she'd forget those idiotic terms later.

"Fancy a glorious Marauder snowball fight after breakfast, Evans?,"Sirius suggested suddenly with a mischievous glow in his eyes. Well, that ought to be fun.

"I'll fetch my coat and gloves," Lily promised.

After breakfast, Lily hurried back to the head's dorm and put on her cloak and gloves plus a beanie. James was already in the common room when she stepped out: "Nice beanie", he commented, "though you'll definitely lose it outside"

Lily grinned: "Pretty wild, your _glorious marauder snowball fights_ , are they?"

James beamed: "True, true..."

They'd had snowball fights at home too, but the best thing had always been building the snowman. Her father would make a big ball, Tuney the middle one, and Lily the small one for the head. Then they'd run inside to get a carrot. Dad had even gotten a blue hat for their snowman; the most beautiful, biggest snowman of their little town. Of course, this will be different. She was wondering if ever once in her life, she'd get her family back, if Tuney and herself could one day celebrate christmas together again. Not much hope, of course. Dad wasn't there anymore to get them together.

James had fallen silent for some time as well, and Lily discovered that there was nothing uncomfortable about it. Now that she thought about it, whenever there had been a silence between them, it had been a comfortable one.

After all, James wasn't that bad, he was actually a great friend to have. And maybe he sensed what Lily was thinking, but he didn't bother her. It had somehow been James who'd lifted her mood last year after her Dad had died. Even as they'd been going through a tough time after New Year's eve. Looking back, it seemed ridiculous that this little incident had been able to destroy everything they'd carefully built up the month before.

"It's still weird for you, isn't it?", he suddenly asked quietly.

His painful tone concerned her. "What do you mean James?" It was still weird, but that wasn't exactly the right word for, that she was celebrating Christmas at school, . Without her Dad, with a group of boys she hadn't even been close to a year ago. But why would James speak about that?

"Being friends with me must be weird to you", he said in a low voice, "I mean I can't blame you, we've been fighting for years, and it was all my fault. I can't manage the whole Head Boy thing and... I noticed that you were questioning yourself over your friendship with me."

Lily stared. "James, I..." What was there to say? It really wasn't that strange. She'd felt weird about it at first, yes, but now she'd come to accept that James was someone she could befriend. She felt guilty that she'd ignored the possibility all these years.

But now... Their friendship had become a part of her life, James had become a part of her. She had discovered – with horror at first – that she actually needed him in her life, but maybe he needed her too. What was going on with him? It was okay if he didn't to talk about it though.

"It's wonderful to be your friend, James. I know I had a hard time discovering just that, but now I don't anymore. I had to admit to myself that many of the things I said to your face and behind your back were totally undeserved, I didn't really know you before. Now I have a feeling I do", Lily began. "You care. You stand up for your friends and defend them no matter what. You protect muggle-borns. You're kind. You might still hex the Slytherins, but hell, maybe some of them deserve it", she said forcefully.

"I would never want to go back to fifth year, James. I really want to be your friend, James. Otherwise I wouldn't try so hard." Lily spoke softly, but seriously. Her words made James finally look up.

"I'm not all good, Lily", he said, fidgeting with his hands.

"There's no need to be perfect," she tried to assure him. Lily hesitated for a moment, but then she stepped forward and pulled him into an embrace. Maybe, she thought, they should really be there for each other more.

"Thank you", James murmured when they pulled away, and Lily swallowed in response.

There were laughs and giggles all the way down, and when they finally reached the grounds by the lake, their laughter filled the cold winter air.

 _Thump_. Lily felt a cold ball hitting her arm and turned around to see Remus grinning at her.

"Oh wait until..." She glared back and quickly formed a white ball herself that hit Remus squarely in the face.

Suddenly they were all involved in a huge, messy snowball fight – Sirius really hadn't been exaggerating. Except someone was missing.

"James!" Lily called, thinking back to their conversation before. What was going on with him? "Where'd he go?"

Suddenly she felt a handful of snow being shoved down her neck, the cold running down her spine. But when she turned around, there was no one who could have done it, absolutely no one. Remus, Sirius and Peter, however, where laughing uncontrollably.

"Oh Merlin, Lily, you should have seen your face", Sirius chuckled so hard he fell into the snow. Lily turned around again when another snowball landed near her ear. She couldn't find the culprit.

There were footsteps in the snow, going around in circles. The cheater! He had brought the invisibly cloak!

When the footsteps passed her again, she pulled at the air, where she supposed his cloak would be.

"Ha!", she called triumphantly, and James stood in front of her, laughing like an idiot. And this time Lily laughed with them.


End file.
